Monday, 14 December 2015

Legal implications if a tenant dies Without an Executor OR Will! IMPORTANT

The below is correct as of writing (13/11/2015 including fees quoted) however as per all UK law's, it is subject to change with no notice so please ensure you check the relevant pages on gov.uk before enacting upon the information given

We have recently had a tenant who passed away without a Next of Kin, or a will, which possession procedures after such an event are a little different and it is quite possible that some of us may not know this. So I am therefore posting the below steps you need to follow. You can of course also find the procedures on the gov.uk website

NB: If your tenant dies without an Executor OR will, then the tenancy is automatically transferred to the Public Trustee.

NB: You can’t take back a property automatically even if the tenancy was due to end and You risk being fined if you try to repossess a property without following the below:

To reclaim your property you must:

Order a NL1 form (it has a cost of £5.05p) and will be sent to you via Royal Mail

Post or deliver a letter to the tenant’s last known address saying you’re giving written notice.

NB:you do not need to wait for the NL1 to arrive to issue the notice letter)

You must then send a copy of the notice and the completed NL1 form to the Public Trustee

Then you must register the notice with the Public Trustee

When writing the notice, you must address it to:

“The Personal Representative of [full name of the tenant who died] of [last known address for the tenant who died]”

We are informed by gov.uk that even though the ‘Public Trustee’ won’t accept photocopies of the official form, we could recreate our own which they would then accept? this didn't make sense to us so we therefore purchased an official form – for the sake of £5.05 in our eyes it didn't make sense to ‘test the system’.